This is a record of my journey as a Muslim. I used to be Catholic and belonged to a missionary organisation. After my conversion, I sat on the board of a Muslim converts' organisation and specialised in da'wah programmes, convert management, interfaith issues and apostasy cases. I am an initiate of a Sufi order. As such, the articles and writings tend to cover these areas.
All the Arabic and graphics could not have been done without the help of my wife, Zafirah.

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

The Tasbih

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ
ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is from the teachings of Shaykh Nazhim Adil
al-Haqqani (q.s.).

Shaykh Nazhim (q.s.) said that whenever he put his tasbih
aside, there were many times that he noticed he was still reciting the dzikr.
This, despite being engaged in speaking
with various people, teaching or advising.. And then a little while later, he would
realise that had ceased the dzikr.
With a tasbih, even if one has stop reciting the dzikr,
the tasbih is a reminder to continue the dzikr, insha’Allah. One brings another.

The first thing that the Wahabbis try to take is the tasbih,
because they want to take away the dzikr. But first, they have to remove the tasbih
reminds us to engage in the dzikr.
We need a tool for every job that we do. It does not matter if you are, are writing
calligraphy, for example, or engaged in drawing, or anything at all. No matter how good we may be at a task, if we
do not have the tools, we cannot succeed.

If we want to engage in dzikr, we must have a tasbih
in our hand. If we do not have a tasbih
in our hand, we will be distracted and fail to engage in continuous dzikr.
Shaythan will to fool us by telling
us that we can engage in dzikr without the need for a tasbih. But in truth, our minds will wander and we
will lose it. That is what it is. These set of beads is a tool for us to be
able to be engaged in dzikr properly. The more dzikr we do, the more we
progress in our purification of the self.

The Turks say, “If we remember something forty times, it
will happen to us. If we believe
something forty times every day, it will start happening.” So, what if you remember our Lord a hundred
times, a thousand times, or even ten thousand times daily? We will surely progress spiritually.